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TropicalMed
Special Issues
Neglected Diseases and Human Rights
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Neglected Diseases and Human Rights

A special issue of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (ISSN 2414-6366). This special issue belongs to the section "Neglected and Emerging Tropical Diseases".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 May 2022) | Viewed by 11165

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Kabengele Mpinga

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Guest Editor
Division of Health and Human Rights, Institute of global health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
Interests: public health and human rights - neglected tropical diseases
Dr. Denise Baratti-Mayer

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Guest Editor
Institute of Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
Interests: Public Health
Prof. Dr. Ngoyi K. Zacharie Bukonda

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Guest Editor
College Of Health Professions, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Wichita, Wichita, KS 67202, USA
Interests: public health
Dr. Ioana Cismas

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Guest Editor
Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
Interests: international humanitarian law
Dr. Marc Dupuis

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Guest Editor
C-SURF Study, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1003 Lausanne, Switzerland
Interests: public health

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which include conditions such as dengue, lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, and leishmaniasis, generally afflict the world’s poor. They historically have not received as much attention as other diseases. Yet, NTDs affect more than one billion people around the world with over 500,000 annual deaths, and face several paradoxes.

First, NTDs face low visibility due to the little interest accorded to them. Second, so far, they suffer a lower epistemological status that goes along with the lack of a clear definition. Third, they are very diverse and complex in their epidemiological manifestations, and hence classical analysis techniques have hardly been suitable to fully explore their diversity and complexity. Finally, an often missing perspective is that these diseases stem from a broad range of causes, among which the social determinants, including but not limited to the fundamental human rights, play a role—a role that has not yet been explored and teased out.

In fact, the fundamental human rights, recognized for all persons, have some synergistic relationships with the many ways NTDs affect patients and their communities, at least in terms of exposure, frequency of occurrence, extent of access to health care services, and outcomes of available treatments, if any. Therefore, these fundamental human rights deserve clear identification, mapping, and focused exploration vis-à-vis NTDs. A more precise identification, a more detailed analysis, and a deeper understanding of these synergetic relationships should offer new insights as well as new tools for planning, managing, and evaluating policies for the control of NTDs at the local, national, regional, and global levels.

This special issue of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease is intended to be a multidisciplinary contribution to the clarification of the relationships between neglected tropical diseases and human rights, and the implications of these relationships in the eradication of these diseases.

This Special Issue is open to authors from different disciplines whose research interests, past or current, cover the following aspects in the form of original studies or reviews:

- Neglected tropical diseases and human rights: reports;

- Issues, epistemological, and epidemiological challenges and implications;

- Neglected tropical diseases: indicators of the state of human rights;

- Human rights: determinants of neglected tropical diseases;

- NTDs and national, regional and international human rights protection systems;

- Political and geopolitical economy of NTDs: the rights-based approach;

- Cultural dimensions of NTDs;

- Policies to combat NTDs: in search of good practices.

Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Kabengele Mpinga
Dr. Denise Baratti-Mayer
Prof. Dr. Ngoyi K. Zacharie Bukonda
Dr. Ioana Cismas
Dr. Marc Dupuis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • neglected tropical diseases
  • human rights
  • epistemology
  • epidemiology
  • interventions
  • geopolitics
  • political economics
  • protection
  • prevention
  • good practices

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 297 KiB  
Article
Noma: Experiences of Survivors, Opinion Leaders and Healthcare Professionals in Burkina Faso
by Moubassira Kagoné, Emmanuel Kabengele Mpinga, Marc Dupuis, Marie-Solène Adamou Moussa-Pham, Margaret Leila Srour, Maïna Sani Malam Grema, Ngoyi-Bukonda Zacharie and Denise Baratti-Mayer
Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022, 7(7), 142; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/tropicalmed7070142 - 20 Jul 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1688
Abstract
The scientific literature on noma (Cancrum Oris) has clearly increased in recent decades, but there seems to have been limited analysis of issues around the psycho-social impacts of this disease. Even when these issues have been addressed, the focus has tended to be [...] Read more.
The scientific literature on noma (Cancrum Oris) has clearly increased in recent decades, but there seems to have been limited analysis of issues around the psycho-social impacts of this disease. Even when these issues have been addressed, the focus has tended to be on patient experiences, whereas the community dimension of the disease and the role of healthcare professionals and community leaders in mitigating these impacts remain largely unexplored. A study in the form of semi-directed interviews with 20 noma survivors and 10 healthcare professionals and community leaders was conducted between January and March 2021 in Burkina Faso with the aim of describing the experiences of noma survivors, generating knowledge about living with the burden of the disease and understanding the attitudes of community leaders towards the disease. The results reveal that noma is a disease that affects economically vulnerable populations and leads to extreme household poverty. As far as treatment is concerned, patients tend to turn to practitioners of both traditional and modern medicine. Within communities, noma survivors face discrimination and stigma. The study highlighted a lack of information and knowledge about noma. However, surgical operations lead to patient satisfaction and these remain one of the coping strategies used to tackle the stigma and discrimination. The recommendations set out in this article are aimed firstly at stepping up research into the psycho-social impacts of noma, and secondly at considering these impacts in regional programmes and national plans to combat the disease. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neglected Diseases and Human Rights)
15 pages, 851 KiB  
Article
Economic and Social Costs of Noma: Design and Application of an Estimation Model to Niger and Burkina Faso
by Emmanuel Kabengele Mpinga, Margaret Leila Srour, Marie-Solène Adamou Moussa, Marc Dupuis, Moubassira Kagoné, Maïna Sani Malam Grema, Ngoyi-Bukonda Zacharie and Denise Baratti-Mayer
Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022, 7(7), 119; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/tropicalmed7070119 - 28 Jun 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2006
Abstract
Background: While noma affects hundreds of thousands of children every year, taking their lives, disfiguring them and leaving them permanently disabled, the economic and social costs of the disease have not been previously estimated. An understanding of the nature and levels of these [...] Read more.
Background: While noma affects hundreds of thousands of children every year, taking their lives, disfiguring them and leaving them permanently disabled, the economic and social costs of the disease have not been previously estimated. An understanding of the nature and levels of these costs is much needed to formulate and implement strategies for the prevention and control of this disease, or to mitigate its burden. The objectives of our study were to develop a model for estimating the economic and social costs of noma and to provide estimates by applying this model to the specific contexts of two countries in the “noma belt”, namely Burkina Faso and Niger. Methods: Three main approaches were used. The estimation of prevalence levels of potential noma cases and of cases that should receive and actually do receive medical care was carried out using a literature review. The documentary approach made it possible to estimate the direct costs of noma by analyzing the database of a non-governmental organization operating in this field and present in both countries. Indirect costs were estimated using the human capital method and the cost component analysis technique. Results: The direct costs of care and management of noma survivors amount to approximately USD 30 million per year in Burkina Faso, compared to approximately USD 31 million in Niger. They mainly include costs for medical treatment, surgery, hospital stays, physiological care, psychological care, social assistance, schooling, vocational training and care abroad. Indirect costs are estimated at around 20 million in lost production costs in Burkina and around 16 million in Niger. Costs related to premature deaths are estimated at more than USD 3.5 billion in Burkina Faso and USD 3 billion in Niger. Finally, the costs to survivors who are unable to marry are around USD 13.4 million in Burkina and around USD 15 million in Niger. Intangible costs were not calculated. Conclusions: The neglect of noma and inaction in terms of prevention and control of the disease have enormous economic and social costs for households, communities and states. Future studies of this kind are necessary and useful to raise awareness and eradicate this disease, which impacts the health and well-being of children and results in lifelong suffering and severe economic and social costs to survivors and their families. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neglected Diseases and Human Rights)
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Review

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15 pages, 420 KiB  
Review
Housing Risk Factors of Four Tropical Neglected Diseases: A Brief Review of the Recent Literature
by Anouk H. M. Chastonay and Oriane J. Chastonay
Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022, 7(7), 143; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/tropicalmed7070143 - 21 Jul 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1658
Abstract
Alongside peace, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources and social justice, shelter is a prerequisite for health. According to international human rights law, everyone is entitled to an adequate standard of living, which includes adequate housing. Adequate housing, including access to [...] Read more.
Alongside peace, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources and social justice, shelter is a prerequisite for health. According to international human rights law, everyone is entitled to an adequate standard of living, which includes adequate housing. Adequate housing, including access to water and sanitation, plays a critical role in the prevention and management of neglected tropical diseases, which affect over 1 billion people worldwide. Inadequate housing conditions represent a risk factor for many of them, e.g., Chagas disease that affects 6–8 million people worldwide, visceral leishmaniasis that kills 20,000–30,000 people/year, lymphatic filariasis which threatens 859 million people worldwide or dengue that has increased 8–10 fold over the last two decades. Vector control strategies for the above-mentioned diseases have shown their effectiveness and should include systematic and repetitive in-house spraying and individual protection (e.g., impregnated nets), as well as better-quality construction material and techniques and better sanitation infrastructures and practices. Access to adequate housing is a basic human right. The violation of the right to adequate housing may affect the enjoyment of other human rights. Access to adequate housing can strengthen (and facilitate access to) other basic human rights, such as the rights to work, health, security, and education. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neglected Diseases and Human Rights)
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21 pages, 423 KiB  
Review
2.5 Million Annual Deaths—Are Neonates in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Too Small to Be Seen? A Bottom-Up Overview on Neonatal Morbi-Mortality
by Flavia Rosa-Mangeret, Anne-Caroline Benski, Anne Golaz, Persis Z. Zala, Michiko Kyokan, Noémie Wagner, Lulu M. Muhe and Riccardo E. Pfister
Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022, 7(5), 64; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/tropicalmed7050064 - 21 Apr 2022
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4187
Abstract
(1) Background: Every year, 2.5 million neonates die, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), in total disregard of their fundamental human rights. Many of these deaths are preventable. For decades, the leading causes of neonatal mortality (prematurity, perinatal hypoxia, and infection) have [...] Read more.
(1) Background: Every year, 2.5 million neonates die, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), in total disregard of their fundamental human rights. Many of these deaths are preventable. For decades, the leading causes of neonatal mortality (prematurity, perinatal hypoxia, and infection) have been known, so why does neonatal mortality fail to diminish effectively? A bottom-up understanding of neonatal morbi-mortality and neonatal rights is essential to achieve adequate progress, and so is increased visibility. (2) Methods: We performed an overview on the leading causes of neonatal morbi-mortality and analyzed the key interventions to reduce it with a bottom-up approach: from the clinician in the field to the policy maker. (3) Results and Conclusions: Overall, more than half of neonatal deaths in LMIC are avoidable through established and well-known cost-effective interventions, good quality antenatal and intrapartum care, neonatal resuscitation, thermal care, nasal CPAP, infection control and prevention, and antibiotic stewardship. Implementing these requires education and training, particularly at the bottom of the healthcare pyramid, and advocacy at the highest levels of government for health policies supporting better newborn care. Moreover, to plan and follow interventions, better-quality data are paramount. For healthcare developments and improvement, neonates must be acknowledged as humans entitled to rights and freedoms, as stipulated by international law. Most importantly, they deserve more respectful care. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neglected Diseases and Human Rights)
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